Natural gas is normally stored on motor vehicles in high pressure tanks that rely on changes in pressure to charge and discharge the gas. For example, such tanks are typically charged with extremely high pressure gas at or near the maximum design pressure of the tank, with the pressure within the tank slowly decreasing as natural gas is discharged from the tank. Unfortunately, the gas capacity of each high pressure tank is limited by its maximum design pressure. As an alternative to high pressure tanks, an adsorbent, such as activated carbon or a metal-organic framework (MOF), may be used within a tank of similar volume to store the same amount of gas at a lower pressure. As a result, the “gas adsorbent” tank may provide increased gas capacity at its maximum design pressure over that provided by a conventional high pressure tank. However, even for gas adsorbent tanks, improvements are still needed for increasing the overall gas capacity of each tank and/or for improving the manner in which natural gas is absorbed/released within each tank.